Kirk Herbstreit on Florida State, McKenzie Milton returning to football

Last season, Florida State finished the season at a disappointing 3-6 overall. As college football season gets underway, the Seminoles are a team that ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit thinks can be sneakily competitive. The biggest think that Florida State has working in its favor according to Herbstreit is its improving culture under head coach Mike Norvell.

Herbstreit: Mike Norvell has tried to fix Florida State’s culture

Despite last season’s lack of success, Herbstreit likes Florida State this year. He doesn’t think that they are quite ready to compete with Clemson or North Carolina at the top of the ACC, but they could be a sneaky team that makes some noise. A big reason for that is Norvell’s ability to turn around the culture within Florida State’s program.

“I kind of picked Florida State as a surprise, sneaky team,” Herbstreit said on Monday. “I’m not going to say that they’re going to unseat North Carolina or Clemson. But from where they’ve been, I don’t know how many players he (Mike Norvell) has chased off from when he walked in there as head coach. It’s been a bunch of guys and we see that all the time. A new coach comes in, sets the new standard, you want to live up to it. No matter what the rules are, you’ve got to fall in line with the culture. He’s had to chase away a number of guys. To get to where you want to go, you’ve got to hit the bottom. Then you start to climb your way back up.”

When you think of hitting rock bottom and working your way back up, Florida State has a great example of that in quarterback McKenzie Milton.

If Milton plays well, he will be the story of college football

Milton suffered a gruesome leg injury at UCF during the 2018 season that forced him to miss the entirety of the past two seasons. As he became healthy, he decided to transfer from Central Florida to Florida State. Milton is listed beside Jordan Travis on Florida State’s week one depth chart. The two are separated by an ‘or.’ If Milton can come back and play quarterback for Florida State, Herbstreit thinks that he could do a lot towards turning around the Seminoles’ culture.

“McKenzie Milton, from what I’ve been told, this is not just a cute story,” Herbstreit said. “When McKenzie Milton went down at UCF, he was a star in the sport. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I hope he’s going to be able to walk again.’ It was one of those injuries. Forget football, unfortunately his career is gonna have to be over.

“And now, here we are three years later and he’s in Tallahassee. I’m like, is this just a story to be a story? No, no, no, he’s competing with Jordan (Travis). It’s an either/or situation. If McKenzie Milton comes back and plays well, because he’s such a great kid, you talk about changing culture. That will be the story of the year in college football if he comes back from that devastating knee injury.”